isang muli at huling pagpupugay “where lies the meaning of things?” she asked, addressing a hundred plus trainees inside the imposing space magsaysay hall was for us. a few brave souls shared their answers to that seemingly simple question. she gently accepted each one of them yet her look and voice betrayed she was looking for a different answer. after a while when no one no longer had the courage to give it a shot, she simply said, “the meaning of things lies in the person.” flor laborte was the training manager of our two and a half months induction training when i joined the department. we were in the local government academy training center in los baños, laguna. diminutive that she was, there was something in her that i could not exactly reconcile with what i heard from those who have gone before us under her watch. they said she was strict and described her the way high school students describe their algebra teacher. and i readily realized how prejudices work silently inside of me when i felt the sudden contrast, that incongruent picture that precedes one’s reputation with that of her warm “kumusta na ang inyong pag-aaral?” when she caught me passing by the alleyway near the training center’s so-called “war room.” i would imagine my batchmates protestations as i say this but that for me was the beginning of this student’s special relationship with a cherished mentor. like when we sought permission for a pass to go out for mass, she did not only gave us the permission but that she managed to check on us how we were when we reported back to the center. i also recount an occasion when she gave me a word of encouragement to continue with how i was doing in the center. and then it happened. she came barging out from the door of her office after a talk she had over the phone with lga’s executive director, elena panganiban. anger and frustration were written all over her face. her whole fragile body quivering as she shouted at us, “o ano? masaya na kayo?” a number of us congregated just outside lga’s entrance then. we were like children, speaking in hush tones and with a demeanor of one having done something really bad. it was all because we did not, except for a few who did, take the module exams. instead of answering the prepared questions, we agreed to come up with a personal essay to express how the whole training was for us. and with a hundred plus or so participants, that event was one thing different as that with another person. even now when i try to discuss what happened with my batchmates, no account is the same. “bakit ninyo nagawa sa akin ito?” she asked, addressing a hundred plus trainees inside the accusing space magsaysay hall was for us that time. a few brave souls offered their explanations to that seemingly simple question. she gently accepted each one of them yet her look and voice betrayed the devastation she was undergoing. “sinira ninyo ang pinag-iingatan kong pangalan,” she said at one point. i mustered a courage so frail that it was only enough to grab the microphone and utter unintelligibly something like we did not mean it to be that way and that we only wanted to thank training management. and as i saw those unperturbed eyes, the impenetrable unbending stance of one who was hurting, i struggled finishing a futile argument and broke down into sobs and took solace with myself as I sat back in my chair. ma’am flor resigned from the academy. months later when revalida came right before our graduation, she took time to drop by and met us at magsaysay hall. i was just too glad to see her that day, like some child seeking forgiveness for a wrong done to a parent. we gathered around her and exchanged stories. she was smiling, her eyes told me so. but the pain was still undeniably there. we invited her to be present during our graduation, yet she did not promised to be there. her visit was a relief, a kind of redemption but i think then as i think now that she visited us because she wanted to come to terms with herself more than she wanted to come to terms with us. years later, i have just learned she was back at the academy. past her retirement age, she was there as a consultant. i had a few occasions of meeting her again. during those times our paths crossed, we don’t talk of what happened then. yet she never fails to be the mother she had always been to me more than i am willing to acknowledge it back then during my training days. every chance i had to work with her again, like in running the new batches of lgoo training, she never fails to give me her encouragements, she compliments me about things i do which she thinks are best. she may be past her seventies and have suffered a mild stroke that slowed her speech faculty down, but what robbed her of speed in words had not robbed her of the sharpness of her mind and the generosity of her heart. she may be the oldest now in the academy but in her i see the very core of what a learning institution should be made of – tradition with the courage for what is new. this is not an attempt to justify or rectify something in the past, one that earned us for some to be the peste-second batch. this is rather just a sincere recognition to a mentor who has taught me the significance of the question: “where lies the meaning of things?” this is not even a reparation for a wrong done. this is my way of thanking ma’am flor, the way that personal essay years back should have been. after all, the meaning of things lies in the person.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 06:57:28 +0000
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